The King Read online

  this, Grace, I promise you, you won’t regret hearing me out.” “I don’t regret anything,” she said.

  Kingsley straightened the photograph of her infant son. No,

  none of them regretted anything. Not even Kingsley. “It was raining,” Kingsley began. “And it was March. I had

  everything then—money, power and all the women and men

  in my bed anyone could possibly want. And to say I was in a

  bad mood would be the understatement of the century. I was

  twenty-eight years old and didn’t expect to see thirty. In fact,

  I hoped I wouldn’t see thirty.”

  “What happened?”

  Kingsley took a breath, took a drink and took a moment

  to pull his words to together. A pity Nora wasn’t here. Storytelling was her gift, not his. But only he could tell this story

  and thus he began.

  “Søren happened.”

  2

  Somewhere in Manhattan, 1993 March

  “WHAT’S YOUR POISON?” THE BARTENDER ASKED, AND Kingsley answered, “Blonds.” The bartender, Duke, half laughed, half scoffed as he pointed to the stage.

  “Two bleach-blonde bottles of poison right there.”

  Kingsley eyed the two girls—Holly and Ivy—who now hung naked from their knees, which they’d wrapped around twin poles. Men sat belly up to the stage watching in silence, making eye contact with no one but the dancers. Dollar bills f luttered between their waving fingers.

  “Not what I’m in the mood for tonight.” Kingsley looked away from the stage.

  “What?” Duke asked. “How can you not be in the mood for that? Are they too hot? Too sexy?”

  Kingsley reached behind the bar and grabbed a bottle of bourbon.

  “Too female.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Duke said, raising both his hands.

  “I promise, I’m not.” And he wasn’t. Someone else had caught his eye. But where had he gone?

  “It’s too quiet tonight,” Kingsley said to Duke. Usually on a Friday night at the Möbius, the place would be standing room only. Half the usual crowd was in attendance tonight. “What’s going on?”

  “You came in the back way?” Duke asked as he uncorked Kingsley’s bourbon for him.

  “Of course.”

  “Some church is outside holding up signs.”

  “Signs?”

  “Yeah, you know. Protest signs. Sex Trade Fuels AIDS. Fornicators will burn. She’s somebody’s daughter.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Go look for yourself.”

  Kingsley took his bottle of bourbon to the front door of the club and took a long drink but not long enough for the sight that greeted him. Duke hadn’t been exaggerating. A dozen people walked up and down the sidewalk carrying various white signs held aloft proclaiming the evils of strip clubs.

  “Told you so,” Duke said from behind Kingsley. “Can we call the cops on them or something? Shoot them?”

  “We don’t have to get rid of them,” Kingsley said. “God will.”

  “He will?” Duke asked. “You sure about that?”

  The sky broke open and rain began to fall. The protestors lasted about five seconds under the bite of the late-winter rain before running for cover.

  “See?” Kingsley said to Duke. He looked up at the sky, “Dieu, merci.”

  “God must be a tits and ass man.”

  “If He wasn’t,” Kingsley said, “He wouldn’t have invented them.”

  He shut the door and glanced around the club again.

  A psychiatrist—if Kingsley would let one near him—would have had a field day with his prodigious talent for finding the blond in every room he entered. If someone blindfolded him right now, he could, with picture-perfect recall, point out every last blond man in a fifty-yard radius. Five of them sat at various stations of the Möbius strip club—two at the bar (one real blond, the other a punk who’d bleached his hair), one working as a bouncer, one disappearing into the bathroom with a suspicious bulge in his trousers and a young one at table thirteen back in the corner. Kingsley had noticed the young blond when he’d first entered the Möbius half an hour ago. He’d been watching him, studying him, getting a read on him. Kingsley approached him.

  The blond at table thirteen sat alone. He didn’t look at any of the girls, but only at his hands, his drink, his table.

  Kingsley sat down across from him and placed the bourbon on the table between them. The amber liquid licked at the sides of the bottle. The blond glanced first at the bourbon, as if wondering where it came from and how it got there, before his eyes settled on to Kingsley’s.

  “I’m going to ask you a question, and it’s important you answer it correctly.” Kingsley did his best to temper his French accent without disposing of it entirely. The accent got him attention when he wanted it but in such a noisy room, he needed to speak as clearly as possible. “Luckily for you, I will tell you the correct answer before I ask the question. And that answer is twenty-one.”

  “Twenty-one?” The blond spoke in some sort of accent of his own—American, obviously, but this young man was far from home. “What’s the question?”

  “How old are you?”

  The blond’s eyes widened. In the dim light, Kingsley couldn’t make out the boy’s eye color. Steel-gray, he hoped, although tonight he wouldn’t be picky.

  “Twenty-one,” he repeated. “I’m definitely twenty-one.”

  “Blackjack,” Kingsley said, smiling. The blond boy might be twenty-one. In two years he might be twenty-one.

  “Do you work here?” the blond asked.

  “I wouldn’t call it work.”

  “I can go. I should go.” The blond started to stand, but Kingsley tapped the table.

  “Sit,” he ordered. The blond sat. A promising sign that he could and would take orders. “Tell me something—no right or wrong answer this time.”

  “Sure. What?”

  “Why are you here?”

  He shrugged, as if the question were obvious.

  “You know. Tits. Asses. Naked girls.”

  “You weren’t looking at the girls. Not even the one who took your drink order. Which I found interesting, as she was mostly naked.”

  Kingsley took another sip of his bourbon straight from the bottle. It burned his throat all the way to his stomach. The woody aftertaste stained the inside of his mouth.

  “Sir, I don’t know what your problem is with me being here, but I can—”

  “Do your parents know?”

  “Know what? That I’m here?”

  “That you’re gay.”

  The blond tried to stand up again, but Kingsley kicked his leg under the table, and the boy landed hard back in his chair.

  “You can go when I say you can go,” Kingsley said. “Now, any other man in here would argue with me if I said he was gay. But you try to leave. I can only assume you won’t argue with me because it’s true.”

  The blond sat in silence and didn’t meet Kingsley’s eyes. A beautiful boy, Kingsley would have noticed him even if he weren’t blond. A strong jaw, strong nose, angular face, high enough cheekbones to give him an air of sophistication and yet, he had wary eyes, watching eyes, eyes that never rested for long, as if he were forever looking over his shoulder. His hair was the pale variety of blond, the Nordic variety. Kingsley’s favorite. He wore clothes designed to blend in with a crowd—faded jeans, white shirt, black jacket. But he’d failed in his attempt. Kingsley had noticed him at once.

  “No, they don’t know,” the boy said. “I’m in town with my dad on a business trip. He’s out with clients tonight. I’m… I walked around Greenwich Village last night. I met this guy outside a club. He told me some rumors about this place.”

  “Believe them,” Kingsley said.

  “You don’t know what rumors I heard.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Kingsley took another sip of the bourbon. “All of them are true.”

  “So t
he guy who owns this place—”

  “What about him?”

  “They say he’s in with the mafia?”

  “It’s a strip club.” Kingsley rolled his eyes. “Every club in town cleans money for the mob whether they want to or not. It’s all cash here. It’s part of the deal. What else have you heard?”

  “That the owner of the club—”

  “Yes?”

  “He used to kill people for a living.”

  “Also true. But if it makes you feel any better, I did it for the government. Never recreationally.”

  The boy’s eyes widened hugely.

  “You own this place?”

  “Haven’t you ever gotten bored and bought a strip club?” “No…”

  “In my defense,” Kingsley said, “it was on sale.”

  The boy narrowed his eyes at Kingsley. “You really own this place?”

  “I do. Why don’t you believe me?”

  “You have to be rich to own a club. No offense, but you don’t look rich.”

  Kingsley glanced down at his clothes. He, too, had dressed to blend in tonight—black pants, black shoes, gray shirt and black leather jacket. Nothing out of the ordinary. No one dressed up to go hunting.

  “Rich people don’t look rich. When you have enough money, you don’t have to impress anyone.”

  “And you seem kind of young.”

  “I’m twenty-eight. I should seem ancient to you. Twentyeight was ancient to me when I was nineteen.”

  “I’m twenty-one, remember,” the blond said. “And you aren’t ancient.”

  “What am I?” Kingsley raised his chin and gazed down at the boy.

  “You’re the most… I mean, you’re…”

  “Spit it out. Use your words.”

  “Gorgeous.”

  Kingsley raised an eyebrow. He didn’t mind the f lattery or the adulation, but he’d wanted the boy the second he’d walked into the club. Time to move things along.

  “What else have you heard?”

  The boy glanced around. He dropped his voice.

  “I heard that there’s another room—”

  “It’s more than one room.”

  The boy sat back. He ran a nervous hand through his hair. Kingsley envied his fingers.

  “So it’s true? You all do kink here? And…other stuff?” “You know why this club is called the Möbius?” Kingsley asked.

  “No. Weird name.”

  “A Möbius strip is an optical illusion. It looks like it has two sides, but it has only one.”

  Kingsley picked the napkin off the table. Embossed on the white paper was a small ribbon, oval-shaped. His patrons likely thought it was an elegant rendition of a vagina. The image conveniently worked on two levels.

  “I don’t understand,” the blond said.

  “Do you want to understand?”

  “It’s why I’m here.”

  “Then follow me. I’ll be your tour guide through hell.”

  Kingsley grabbed the bottle off the table, and the boy followed him to a quiet corner of the club. To the right of the bar was a door bearing an employees only sign. Kingsley pushed through. The blond hesitated, but Kingsley grasped him by the wrist and pulled him.

  “I told you I own this place. Do you think you’re going to get into trouble?” Kingsley asked.

  “Yeah,” the blond said.

  “If you’re with me, you’re already in trouble.”

  They walked down a short hall to another door. Kingsley paused to pull out his keys.

  “I should go,” the blond said. “I—”

  Without even looking at him, Kingsley shoved the boy back against the wall and held him there with one hand.

  He found the key but didn’t put it in the lock. Instead, he dangled it in front of the boy’s face. In the brighter light of the hallway Kingsley could see the blond had light brown eyes. Not the steel-gray color he’d hoped for, but still he would do.

  “This key opens a door to a hidden part of this club,” Kingsley said. “The part of the club you came to see. Doors are symbols, you know. Thresholds to cross, choices to be made. It’s not often that a real door stands between you and a different life. Don’t waste this chance. You go back that way, and you stay in your old world. You open that door, and you enter a new one.”

  The boy eyed the silver key dangling from Kingsley’s middle finger.

  “If you were me…” the blond said.

  “I was you,” Kingsley said.

  “What did you choose?”

  Kingsley didn’t answer at first. There had been no door for him, no key.

  “I ran through the door. And I never looked back.”

  Sweat beaded on the boy’s smooth young forehead. Kingsley held him still and hard against the wall and under his hand he could feel the boy’s heart battering against his chest.

  The boy reached up and grabbed the key. With fumbling fingers, he shoved it in the lock, turned the knob and pushed through the door. This time, Kingsley followed him.

  Behind the door, the world changed color. Out front, the lights were black. Here they were blue. Out in the club, a pantomime of sex played out on and around the stage. Girls gave lap dances, feigned interest and faked smiles. Here, behind the door, men groped in the dark, coupled frantically, secretly. Nothing was feigned. No one pretended to fuck back here. They fucked.

  “Jesus,” the boy whispered as they passed a man bent over a chair, another man behind him, inside him, fucking him without shame or restraint.

  “If you’re looking for Jesus, you won’t find him down here,” Kingsley said, stepping in front of the blond to guide him through the hall.

  “Is this a bathhouse?” the boy asked.

  “You see anyone taking a bath?”

  The boy laughed. “No.”

  “It’s not a brothel, either. No one’s paying for sex here. I’m not a pimp.”

  “What is it then?”

  “Sanctuary,” Kingsley said. “Most of these men are married. Children. Jobs. They come to the club because no one cares if a man goes to a strip club full of naked women. They walk in the front door first. But it’s the back door they’re here for.”

  Kingsley laughed, but the boy didn’t. The other blond would have gotten his joke.